


In Her Thrall

by RedRowan



Series: La Belle Dame Sans Merci [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Everyone Has Issues, F/M, Female Matt Murdock, Light Angst, Light Bondage, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 04:31:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11395386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRowan/pseuds/RedRowan
Summary: Frank tries to put that night with Mattie behind him, but he can't seem to find a way out of her orbit.





	In Her Thrall

He couldn’t get away from her.

She was on the news, on the police radio his scanner was turned to. She was in his head when he was awake, and in his dreams when he slept.

He could keep clear of Hell’s Kitchen, while his leg healed and the rest of New York vomited up human refuse for him to take down. But he couldn’t get rid of her.

He saw her for the first time since…since that thing that shouldn’t have happened…near the end of January. His leg was healed, and he hadn’t realized he was being led into Hell’s Kitchen until it was too late, and he was pinned down. He heard the shouts and the blows, and by the time he stepped out, she was kicking some scumbag in the head. Spinning kick, leaping into the air, looking like a streak of blood against the darkness. Full beautiful.

“Hey, thanks, Red,” he called.

She looked at him - no, she couldn’t _look_ , but she turned her head, scowling, then disappeared into the shadows. By the time he’d crossed the ten or so yards to where she’d been, she was gone.

In his head, that night, he imagined it went differently.

She’d smiled when she turned her head.

“Frank,” she’d said.

“Hey, Red,” he’d said, stalking across the space between them. He’d grabbed her and pushed her against the wall behind her (there hadn’t been a wall, really), and she’d hiked herself up on him, wrapping her legs around him as he’d kissed her. He’d tugged her suit open (he had no idea how the suit really came off), and pulled it down, exposing pale, scarred flesh.

He came in his hand when he thought of how it would feel to push inside her.

He could rationalize it. She was the only woman he’d been with since the park, after all, and he couldn’t think about Maria, not yet. Maybe not ever. So he thought about Red’s tits and ass instead (swear to God, he wasn’t thinking about her smile or the way she’d felt curled against him). That was it. She was a safe choice for the spank bank, that was all.

“Safe” was never a word that anyone should use to describe Mattie Murdock.

They wound up tracking the same group of dealers; Frank got to them first, and she crashed through the window into the middle of the gunfight. First thing she did was kick Frank’s arm, so the headshot he had lined up went into the ceiling. He swore at her, but deep down, he liked fighting next to her. Even if she took time out of her busy fighting to throw off his shots.

She always looked damn good when she fought.

He was admiring her form when she dropped the last asshole, and didn’t see it coming when she turned and punched him in the face.

“What the hell was that for?” he growled.

“Stay the fuck out of Hell’s Kitchen, Frank,” she snarled.

“Jesus, Red, we’ve been here before. You need me to tie you up again?” It was out of his mouth before he realized how it sounded, how you couldn’t say some things after….certain things…had happened. She stood there for a moment with her mouth open, before she kicked him square in the chest, her boot leaving a dirty print on the painted skull. He sprawled on his back and watched her dive through the jagged remnants of the window.

At home (or what passed for home this month), he stared at the print on the vest, and thought about her chained to a chimney. In the shower, he thought about it again, but…well, it went a different way. But once he was in bed, he stopped himself. Patience.

Instead, he thought about seeing her perched on his windowsill.

“Do you want that?” she said.

Not even inside his own head, in his own fantasy, could he admit what he really wanted.

“Think I’d make a joke about that?” he said, sitting up.

She slid off the windowsill, sauntering over to him. She ran a hand up his leg, over the sheet, until she was palming him. She was wearing the hoodie and sweatpants she’d worn…that time. He leaned his head back with a groan.

“I think you’d do anything for me,” she said.

He opened his eyes then, and grabbed her arm and the front of her hoodie, throwing her onto the bed and rolling onto her. She grinned as he unzipped her hoodie and pulled it off her, before he pinned her arms and dipped his head to kiss her as he held her down, one of her legs thrown over his hip, the other under his knee.

“Somebody thinks a lot of herself,” he murmured.

“Somebody knows when you want her,” she said, the leg over his hip dragging up to pull him closer.

He grabbed her leg and pulled it up, using it as leverage to flip her onto her stomach. He smacked her ass through her sweatpants before he reached over to grab the rope on the floor next to the bed (he used rope a lot when he was out on jobs, it wasn’t much of a stretch to think it might be there). She wriggled a little, just to let him know he wasn't the boss of her, but she let him tie her wrists to the headboard. They were both breathing heavily when he pressed himself against her back, feeling her breasts in his hands, his nose buried in the scent of her hair and her skin.

Back in the real world, his hand slowed, thinking of that.

She said his name, asking for him, telling him she wanted him. He pulled down her sweatpants and thrust into her, hearing her enjoyment of him as -

He came all over his hand and the sheets. As he cleaned it up, he wondered if Red’s super-senses could tell that he’d jerked off to her.

He could blame her kicking him in the chest on that, but he knew that wasn’t true.

He’d left her to wake up alone. On Christmas, no less. She had a right to be pissed at him.

It was better if she was pissed at him.

It was better if she hated him and left him behind her, just another scar. She didn’t need his bullshit and his dirty fantasies in her life.

He wouldn’t think about how lonely she’d seemed, that night. She’d just scratched an itch, that was all.

He wouldn’t think about watching her hold her old love in her arms as she died.

She’d offered to fight his way, on the docks. He’d thrown her overboard rather than let her fall that far, let her become what he was. She was a pain in his ass, a self-righteous, arrogant half-measure barely better than the fucking Avengers, and he couldn’t let her be anything else.

He wouldn’t think about the scars on her skin.

No, he’d just jerk off to the memory of her, because if he did that, it meant she was better than him.

It should have been obvious, but arms dealers always have the best arsenals. Frank was raiding one of their storehouses, liberating some choice pieces, when he heard the telltale sounds of Red getting pissed off. There was gunfire, then Frank busted out the door and started firing at anything that wasn’t red and masked, until an explosion rocked the warehouse. Frank was behind cover, and for a few moments was so disoriented that he couldn’t put a sentence together. Grenade? Might have been a grenade. Or might have been something in the crates. He swung the muzzle of his gun back around, but the arms dealers had already fled. He heard the squeal of tires, but his attention was on the red figure not moving on the floor.

He saw Lisa, her face ripped apart into a mass of red.

He saw Maria, holding her guts in on the concrete.

He saw Junior, nearly cut in half by the bullet holes.

“No, no, no,” he repeated under his breath as he rushed to the prone body on the deck. She wasn’t moving. Jesus Christ, she'd survived him shooting her in the head, she could take a damn grenade, or whatever. “C’mon, Red,” he muttered as he gathered her into his arms. He flicked at the catch on the back of her helmet, pulling it off. There wasn’t any blood. That was good, right? “Red, don’t do this.” She was pale, but wasn’t she always? Fair skin and red lips and dark hair, like fucking Snow White. She was breathing. Thank Christ. “Mattie,” he whispered, holding her against his chest. “Goddammit, wake up.” He buried his face in her hair. “Please wake up.”

He held her for an eternity, paralyzed, not knowing what to do. Then her hand shoved at his chest, and she was pushing him off her.

“Where are they?” she croaked.

“Gone. They’re gone.”

She groaned as she rolled away from him, onto her knees. He watched her hand scrabble on the concrete, reaching for her mask. It took her three tries to grab it.

“You should get yourself checked out,” he said.

“I’m fine,” she snapped, pulling the mask on.

“Red -“ He reached out to her face and she tried to slap his hand away. She caught his wrist instead.

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped.

“You can’t go jumping off buildings like this, you’ll get yourself killed.”

“Like you care.” She stood up and started stalking away.

“Yeah, I do,” he said, not bothering to raise his voice.

She wheeled on him, her lip curled.

“Bullshit, Frank!” she snarled. “You were the one who left after you got what you wanted.”

His heart sank, because, yeah, that’s what it had looked like. That’s what he’d hoped she’d thought.

“Yeah. Right.” he said.

She stopped, her mouth hanging open.

“You’re lying,” she said.

He’d forgotten that she’d said she could tell when someone was lying. He hadn’t been sure he believed her, but here she was, right on the money.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Fuck - stop it!” She shouted, before she caught herself. “Just - “ She shook her head, her lips pressed together, as if she was stopping herself from asking him for anything. “It doesn’t matter,” she repeated. He wondered if she was lying, too. She turned away.

“I didn’t think you’d want to wake up next to me,” he said. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe he owed her the truth. 

He was still kneeling, which might have been the only reason she didn’t punch him in the face again.

“You don’t get to decide that!” she shouted.

He shrugged. “I’m the goddamn Punisher, Red. In what world would you want that?”

One batch, two batch. Penny and dime.

“The one where I’ve saved your life, and you’ve saved mine,” she said, finally, standing over him. She reached out a gloved hand, and brushed her fingers through his hair, finding the scar he’d shown her that night. He reached up and wrapped his hand around her wrist. “Which happens to be the one where I let you into my bed in the first place.”

“Let me give you a ride home,” he said.

He put his coat over her shoulders to disguise the suit, and she tucked her helmet by her feet as he drove through Hell’s Kitchen. Neither of them said anything, except for her to direct him to pull up in front of her building. When he turned off the truck, she didn’t move to get out.

He looked at her, really looked at her. She looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes, and a frown on her lips. He thought she might even be thinner than when they’d…than last time he’d been here. He reached over and put his hand over her gloved ones clasped in her lap.

“Do you want to come up?” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

She wrapped his coat around her, and they went in through the front door. She tilted her head at the bottom of the stairs, then nodded, leading him up to the roof, then down into her apartment. The same murky purple light lit the room, flickering shadows across her face as she turned to him, taking his coat off and dropping it on the armchair. She chewed her lip for a moment as he reached out to her, staying just out of his reach.

“I’m on my period,” she said in a rush. “It’s not heavy - near the end - but if you don’t -“

“Hey, hey,” he said, finally brushing his fingers against her face, through her hair. He pulled her against his chest, feeling how she fit against him. “It’s just blood,” he said. It’s nothing either of them haven’t dealt with before.

She let him hold her for a long moment, and he didn’t move, just listened to her breathe.

“I’m, uh, going to take…you know, why don’t you wait in there?” she said as she pulled away. She waved vaguely at the bedroom as she slipped into the bathroom.

He hesitated for a moment, looking into her bedroom. Her bed was rumpled, silk sheets pushed back. He remembered standing there on Christmas morning, looking at her sleeping form.

_O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,  
Alone and palely loitering?_

He took a deep breath and crossed the threshold. He sat on her bed and took off his boots, leaving them on the floor before he remembered that he’d been told to keep the floors clear for blind people in the VA hospital where he’d visit his buddies. He stood up and pushed the boots under the bed. He heard the water running through the wall between the bedroom and the bathroom, and wondered if he should take his clothes off, standing in the middle of the room. He hesitated long enough that the water turned off, and he heard the door open. He looked over his shoulder, and she was standing in the doorway in a black sports bra and panties, scars standing out against her pale skin.

Full beautiful.

She came to him and rested her hand over his heart. He put his hands on either side of her face and tilted her up to him, brushing his lips against hers before pushing for more. He felt her hand tighten on his t-shirt, and he put an arm around her waist, turning her towards the bed. They sank down together, peeling off clothing as they went. He ran his hand up her thigh, stroking her as she pulled him down to kiss her.

She broke the kiss long enough to reach over to her bedside table and pull out a condom. He glanced at his fingers and saw a streak of dark blood on them.

“Pass me one of those tissues?” he said.

She looked embarrassed as she did, so he made sure to kiss her again. It was just blood. Then she pushed him back so he was sitting up, kneeling between her legs, and leaned forward to put her mouth on him. His dick jumped to attention, and he took her shoulders to push her onto her back. He rolled the condom on and took her hand, letting her feel it on him, letting her know they were safe. She smiled.

He couldn’t say it, not yet.

Instead, he pushed inside her, keeping the pace slow and gentle, not sure how else to tell her the truth. She sighed and kissed him, and moved her hips with his, but it wasn’t long before she had her hand wrapped around to the back of his head, and her lips against his ear.

“Harder,” she whispered.

He dropped his face into the hollow between her neck and her shoulder, and thrust harder.

“Like that?” he gasped.

“I’m not made of glass,” she said, sounding amused.

And he understood. He pushed himself up, bracing a hand against the wall above her head, and she ran her hand down his chest before he started to pound into her. Her blank eyes couldn't meet his, so he stared at her lips instead as she panted and told him, “yes, like that.”

_She looked at me as she did love,  
And made sweet moan._

Her hand found his face, her thumb on his lips, her fingertips tracing his eyebrow, and he let her feel his expression, his breath against her skin. When she came under him, he took her hand and kissed the center of her palm before he lowered himself onto her and moved his skin against hers.

He came wrapped in her body, her scent in his nose and her lips against his. 

He went to the bathroom to clean up and throw away the condom, then climbed back into bed with her. She turned on her side to face him, and he pulled the covers up over them. She laid her hand on his cheek, and he slid is hand over her thigh to her hip. She’d put her underwear back on while he’d been in the bathroom.

“You know I’m no good for you,” he said.

She smiled sadly and shook her head. “I’m no good for anyone, either,” she said. 

He pulled her close, so her head was resting on his chest, and kissed her hair.

“Don’t think that, Red,” he murmured.

“Then you don’t, either.”

Hell of a pair, the two of them. 

_And there I shut her wild, wild eyes  
With kisses four._

He let himself sleep for a little while, then woke up to find her awake beside him. He pressed her onto her stomach and had her again, learning how to make her moan and gasp and come. When they were finished, he noticed the sky lightening outside.

“Sun’s coming up,” he said, sitting next to her on the bed.

She rolled onto her side, propping herself up on an elbow.

“Do you need to go?” she said.

He should. He made things complicated, she didn’t need that. But her hand was on his arm, warm against his skin.

“No,” he said, pulling the covers up. He could buy just a little more time.

_‘La Belle Dame sans Merci  
Hath thee in thrall!’_

**Author's Note:**

> You know, originally, _Scar Tissue_ was supposed to be a one-shot. But then over the past few weeks there seems to have been an upsurge in interest in that story, and the comments started to give me ideas (we've established that I'm very suggestible). So thanks to all those commenters. I'm not sure if this will be a continuing series, or maybe something I come back to on an annual basis, but who knows?
> 
> The poem excerpts Frank recites in his head are from "La Belle Dame Sans Marci" by John Keats.


End file.
